Lola
Montez - 3 page bio at Divas - The Site ... Famous
both for her self-created "Tarantula Dance", as
well as being the inspiration for the expression "Whatever
Lola wants, Lola gets", Miss Montez serves as an excellent
example of what one can do if possessed of a little drive
and ambition, as well as ...

From Montez,
Lola at Encyclopædia Britannica Women in American History
...

Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, Marie Dolores Eliza
Rosanna Gilbert spent much of her girlhood in India but
was educated in Scotland and England. At age 19 she eloped
with Lieutenant Thomas James; the couple separated five
years later and in 1843 Gilbert launched a career as a dancer.
Her London debut as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer"
in June 1843 was disrupted when she was recognized as Mrs.
James. ...

1853 - arrived at San Francisco in May, married Patrick
Hull in July and moved to Grass Valley, California in August.

1855-56 - tour of Australia

January 17, 1861 - died in New York of pneumonia

From E Clampus ...

Eliza Gilbert was born the daughter of a Spanish beauty and
a British solder in Ireland in 1818. Her father was transferred
to India and she spent her early years there. After her father
died, her mother remarried and she was sent to live with Calvinistic
relatives in England. She had a difficult time adjusting to
this newer stricter life.... "In a squalid boarding house
in the Hell’s Kitchen district of New York, Lola Montez died
on January 17, 1861. The notorious Countess of Landsfield, once
loved for her beauty and character... not her dancing... was
only 42. Her lifetime had been a fable... with a little truth
mixed in." --Lola
Montez- by E Clampus Vitus (Credo Quia Absurdum)

Annie Lore adds
a comment on the Clampers' entry ...
They state: "Eliza Gilbert was born the daughter of a Spanish
beauty and a British solder in Ireland..." Lola's mother
(also named Elizabeth or Eliza) was not Spanish; she was an
illegitimate daughter of Charles Oliver, scion of the powerful
Irish Olivers and a member of parliament. As to "In a squalid
boarding house in the Hell’s Kitchen district of New York, Lola
Montez died..." I'm not sure at this moment which account
they're quoting here, but suffice to say that Lola had very
decent lodgings and care during her last days. The sometimes
lurid, and even horrifying, descriptions of her circumstances
have no basis in documented fact, and I believe spring from
a moralising desire to see that her sins of unconventionality
were punished with terrible sufferings. Just for the record!
-The ever-corrective Annie Lore

The California
gold camps were hard on the ladies, but that didn't stop them
from arriving, surviving, and sometimes thriving.

Full of life and vinegar was the infamous Lola Montez. Born
in Ireland in 1818, she was an actress of questionable morals
and talent. By the time she reached San Francisco, she had
been through three marriages and numerous scandals involving
the likes of Ludwig I of Bavaria and composer Franz Liszt.
When Montez took her famed "spider dance" into the gold fields,
it wasn't warmly received. In fact, the miners booed her off
the stage. She threatened to horsewhip one newspaper editor
who had given her a bad review, and dared another to a duel.
-- No Place for
a Woman? By Patricia Cronin Marcello

Glamorous and boldly unconventional, La Lola attracted an
enthusiastic following based more on her persona and her beauty
than on her talent. She thrilled Gold Rush San Francisco with
her amorous scandals and famously suggestive "Spider
Dance." A "liberated" woman, she was also known
for her affairs with Franz Liszt and King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
First appearing in San Francisco in May of 1853, Lola Montez
spent a year in California's sleepy Sierra town of Grass Valley,
where she took an interest in a young neighbor named Lotta
Crabtree. -- The San Francisco Performing Arts Library
& Museum (SF PALM) www.sfpalm.org

Just two doors down from their boarding house, the infamous
actress and Countess of Landsfeldt, Lola Montez herself had
set up housekeeping. Mary Ann became acquainted with her and
soon little Lotta, who adored Lola,
became her protégé and was allowed to play in her costumes
and dance to her German music box.
--
Lotta Crabtree, Fairy Star of the Gold Rush @Nevada County
Gold Online

In
her twenty year career, she had become the single most talked
about woman of her time ..

In January of 1861, the New York Times reported that
the "wonderfully chequered" career of Lola Montez
had come to an end. By "wonderfully chequered" the
Times meant to say that Lola had rejected traditional Victorian
social mores. She had led an unconventional life; she was
the center of many scandals, travelled the world, and even
incited riot. Though she was the talk of the day, the New
York Times made her appear to be an errant sinner, rather
than the hell-raising harridan that shocked the Victorian
world. -- Lola Montez: The Reluctant Victorian - By Robyn
Blaber and Dr. Toni Johnson-Woods

Montez published Anecdotes of Love; Being a True Account
of the Most Remarkable Events Connected with the History of
Love; in All Ages and among All Nations (1858), The
Arts of Beauty, or, Secrets of a Lady's Toilet with Hints
to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascination (1858), and Lectures
of Lola Montez, Including Her Autobiography (1858).

"Bruce Seymour describes Lola’s disastrous early
marriage to her mother’s admirer, her many romantic liaisons
after she left her husband, her disappearance to Spain
when she was about to be sued for divorce, her reappearance
as a Spanish noblewoman and dancer, and her love affairs
with, among others, Franz Liszt. Seymour uses the recently
discovered intimate correspondence between Lola and King
Ludwig I of Bavaria to recount how she won the heart of
the aging king, how she was driven from his kingdom by
an angry mob, and how Ludwig ultimately abdicated because
of her. Seymour presents an unretouched portrait of a
woman of contradictory parts---a woman who was beautiful,
intelligent, and courageous but was also monstrously egocentric
and manipulative and who was above all an independent
woman ahead of her time." [review]

... no thorough biography of Montez has been done in over
20 years and since all previous works relied perhaps too
heavily on Montez's version of her life, Seymour's work
fills the gap by providing the definitive biography [more
info and reviews]

Links ...

Lotta
Crabtree and Lola Montez [standingstones.com] ... One of
the more colourful characters of the 19th century was Lola Montez
(c. 1818-1861), who claimed to be a Spanish dancer, although
she was actually Irish. She was best known for her "Spider
Dance", a sort of tarantella which involved shaking rubber
tarantulas out of her clothing

A
Gift From The Past - By Marina Maxwell ... During the nine
years in which I have been seriously pursuing my historical writing
career, I have had some strange experiences which only add weight
to this idea, none more so than my “contact” with Lola Montez.

Much contradictory information has been published about Lola. Some of this
comes from her own autobiography - a source of much of the misinformation about
her, filled with her own distortions and inventions. Others come from the many
"memoirs" and "biographies" of Lola in her lifetime. See: Discrepancies
concerning the record of Lola Montez

The Hotel has hosted many luminaries from four of America's most famed presidents
Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, James A. Garfield and Grover Cleveland
to boxers Gentleman Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. The
Holbrooke soon became the focal point of the art world, attraction writers
such as Mark Twain and Bret Harte,
dancer Lotta Crabtree and internationally renowned actress-dancer
Lola Montez. Of course, the history would not be complete without the more infamous
of characters, Black Bart.

It’s the show that never was… Being the Singular Opening
Night Performance of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Starring Lola
Montez Presented by the Excelsior Theatrical Company in Association with
the San Francisco Fringe Festival ... FOUR SHOWS ONLY · Saturday, September
7th at 4:00 and 9:00PM · Friday the 13th (our UnLucky in Love show) at
9:00pm · Sunday, September 15th at 4:00pm At Venue 9 252 Ninth Street
(between Howard & Folsom) in San Francisco - For more, see: www.excelsiorcompany.com